Monitoring of anti-platelet therapy and anti-platelet drug resistance

Abstract

To monitor the effectiveness of anti-platelet therapy should be important since anti-platelet drug "resistance" or non-compliance can be evaluated clearly by it. However, the anti-platelet therapy monitoring is not widely practiced, probably due to poorly-standardized platelet function test. Among the anti-platelet drug resistance, aspirin resistance is one of the most important topics in clinical thrombosis and hemostasis field. Also, clopidogrel resistance recently became a big issue. Monitoring of anti-platelet therapy is needed for further understanding of these anti-platelet drug resistances.